Nine Lives

8/10/16

The formidable Kevin Spacey wanders through this wreck of a
comedy playing a callous business tycoon who learns important
life lessons when he's forced, temporarily, to inhabit the
body of a cat. This transformation, brought about in
fulfillment of some dark hints about the mogul's future made
by the vaguely mysterious pet shop owner (Christopher Walken)
from whom he purchased the feline as a birthday gift for his
young daughter (Malina Weissman), enables him to hear what
his family, which also includes his second wife (Jennifer
Garner) and his grown son (Robbie Amell) from his previous
marriage (to Cheryl Hines), really think of him. While the
force-fed moral underlying director Barry Sonnenfeld's
flavorless film, namely that familial bonds should take
priority over the pursuit of wealth, is unarguable, the
script includes elements that prevent endorsement for those
youngsters who might be most inclined to settle for the
entertainment value of slapstick animal antics.

Watch out for: A suicide theme, some adult
wordplay, at least one use each of profanity and crass
language, a mild oath, nonhuman scatological humor.